


Black-Tinted Glasses

by WaichuBlue



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Eret Needs A Hug (Video Blogging RPF), Eret-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Herobrine Eret (Video Blogging RPF), How Do I Tag, Hurt/Comfort, Manipulative Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, They/Them Pronouns for Eret (Video Blogging RPF), cw in the notes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 09:20:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29997201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaichuBlue/pseuds/WaichuBlue
Summary: The first time Eret gets summoned, it's an accident. But, it's definitely a change from their years and years of walking around the halls of Herobrine's pyramid (a welcome change? Maybe? They're not quite sure). In the Overworld, they meet a young boy named Dream who's about their age. Five years later, Dream summons them again. But this time, things go a lot different, and now Eret has to stay in Dream's new server, called the Dream SMP.Or, Eret is similar to Herobrine and Dream summons them onto the SMP.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Eret (Video Blogging RPF), No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 67





	Black-Tinted Glasses

**Author's Note:**

> This is not RPF, it's the characters, not the people.
> 
> cw for the chapter// anxiety, anxiety attacks (not super bad tho), sensory overload  
> (I hope I did that correctly?)
> 
> This is my first fic, so I hope you like it! I plan to have some more chapters so I'd really appreciate your feedback ^^  
> asdfghjkl I'm so nervous about publishing this

Being summoned was an odd sensation. Of course, 14-year-old Eret had never experienced it themself, only hearing stories from Herobrine about how inconvenient it was to be ripped from one world and thrust into another at the whim of a mortal with some gold, netherrack, mossy cobblestone, and redstone torches. Although Herobrine was often gone to wreak destruction and havoc on other worlds, he did try and tutor them a little bit in his own brusque, exasperated way. They sucked up all the knowledge of reading and writing and history like a sponge, but Herobrine could never get them to use their powers. They suspected that he doubted if they had any at all, maybe he wondered if their eyes and their sudden appearance in the world were the only similarities between the two.

  
When Herobrine was away, Eret would walk the halls of the sandstone pyramid, boots clicking on the dusty floor, and try and summon glowstone or fly or make tunnels in the walls of the pyramid, but they never could. It was on a day like this when they were pacing the darkened, windowless hallways with their eyes painting a soft glow on the air in front of them when the world began to shift.

  
Being summoned was an odd sensation. Streaks of white tore across their vision and their stomach lurched as the pyramid seemed to be erased right in front of them and replaced with blue. It was too blue and too bright, the color only broken up by white fluff. Their knees buckled as they tried to make sense of the world around them. They collapsed onto a piece of netherrack and closed their eyes. It was too bright, too much.

  
“Wait… you don’t look like Herobrine…” a voice rang in their ears.

  
They cracked an eye open to the overly saturated world. A boy around their own age was sitting on the grass below them, looking as if he had been blown back. They were sitting on a netherrack block on top of 8 gold blocks with mossy cobble in the center, surrounded by 4 redstone torches.

  
“I’m… I’m not…” their voice rasped. They weren’t sure how long Herobrine had been gone from the pyramid, but they hadn’t spoken since they last saw him.

  
“Well then, who are you?” the boy stood up. He had bright emerald green eyes and his blond hair flopped in front of his face. He had a jagged scar running down the side of his cheek but he seemed excited and full of energy.

  
“I’m Eret. Uh.. they/them,” they shut their eyes again. There was too much color in the world around them, everything was so bright. The grass was so green and the sky was so blue and it was nothing like the comfortable dim light of the pyramid.

  
“I’m Dream! He/him I guess. Your eyes glow like Herobrine’s and that’s pretty cool!” Dream paused, waiting for a response. Eret only shut their eyes closed more. The world outside burned them.

  
“Are you alright?” Dream asked.

  
“It’s so bright…” their voice was quiet. It wasn’t supposed to be quiet. They were supposed to be a commanding presence, a presence of fear. It was what Herobrine had taught them and they were letting him down.

  
“Oh! I know!” there was the sound of footsteps on the grass and then there was silence for a moment. Eret began to wonder where Dream had gone. Were they alone again? That would be nice, but they also felt a pang in their chest at the fact that Dream might have abandoned them, despite only meeting the boy a few minutes ago. Then, the footsteps returned, growing louder, until Eret felt something cool press over their eyes.

  
They slowly opened their eyes to find that the world now had a grey lens over it. A pair of sunglasses rested on the bridge of their nose. Things weren’t as bright or as overwhelming. Dream stood in front of them, grinning with excitement.

  
“Did it work? Do you like the sunglasses? I mean, I can’t see your eyes anymore and it was really cool when they glowed and stuff but-“ Eret cut Dream off in the middle of his rambling.

  
“Thank you,” Eret shakily stood up from the shrine.

  
“Oh, it’s no problem! Hey, so, why do you think you showed up instead of Herobrine? I mean, I’m not complaining, Herobrine is scary, but do you know why?” Dream asked.

  
“I’m honestly not too sure… did you misspell Herobrine with an extra ‘e?’” they respond. Dream thinks for a moment, then sheepishly nodded.

  
“I think so… I think I might’ve spelled it Herobrene with an ‘e’. And then my handwriting might’ve made the ‘n’ look like an ‘r’ and I put an exclamation point at the end for excitement, ya know?” Eret did not know, but they nodded when Dream spoke, “and then that might’ve been interpreted as a “t” so it was a mix of your name and Herobrine and then it brought you here instead?”

  
Eret blinked for a moment, processing what Dream had said. It seemed feasible. They shivered in their t-shirt and jeans as a chill wind blew across the ground, fallen leaves swirling in the air. They felt awfully like one of those leaves, picked up from one place and dropped in another. But although this place was different from the pyramid, it was a nice kind of different once Eret didn’t have colors blaring at them. They knelt on the ground and ran their fingers through the grass. It was cool soft, although occasionally, individual blades would prick their fingers. They didn’t have grass in the pyramid. They didn’t have any nature in the pyramid at all.

  
The pyramid. Herobrine. What would Herobrine say if he came back and they weren’t there? Was Dream expecting them to do something fabulous like Herobrine could? For a moment, their shivering wasn’t just from the cold as their thoughts spiraled into more questions. Then, Dream put a hand on their shoulder, startling them out of their thoughts.

  
“Dream, why did you summon me?” Eret asked the question to the boy, hoping to get a reason and put a stop to their racing mind.

  
“It was a dare! My friends George and Sapnap dared me to summon Herobrine and if I didn’t do it they said I would be a coward. So, I did it because I’m not a coward, I’m really cool!” Dream grinned, then added, “and also extremely humble.”

  
Eret laughed at that, a deep chuckle. Dream smiled.

  
“Well, I would say that you completed the dare successfully,” Eret paused for a moment, “I really should be leaving soon.”

  
Maybe if Dream thought that the dare was done, they wouldn’t have to explain how they couldn’t use their powers correctly, how they were a failure to Herobrine’s name even after he had taken them in and tried to teach them. Maybe Dream would let them leave without even mentioning the frightening powers Herobrine (or someone like Herobrine) was supposed to have.

  
“Aww, why do you have to leave?” Dream pouted, “You just got here Eret! I could show you how cool this place is, there’s a bunch of different places you haven’t even been yet, you’re just sitting in this field with me.”

  
“I’m fine with just sitting here,” Eret gave Dream a small smile, “You, uh, you’re the first person I think I’ve talked to besides Herobrine…”

  
“Oh,” Dream paused, “We can stay here if you want. I don’t want to rush you, I guess this Overworld is pretty different from where you’re from, especially if you reacted like you did without the glasses. But you should stay for a bit longer if this is the first time you’ve been anywhere. Come on Eret, experience the world!”

  
Dream flopped dramatically down onto the grass beside Eret as they picked some flowers and started to weave a flower crown. They sat there for at least an hour as the wind died down and the sun dipped in the sky. The afternoon was warmer now, and Eret finished off the flower crown with an allium.

  
“It means patience and good fortune. The allium does, I mean,” they mentioned as they twirl the crown in their fingers, “I read that a book from one of the pyramid libraries.”

  
“That's interesting…” Dream said. While Eret had been sitting in the grass and weaving the flower crown, Dream had laid down beside them and had almost fallen asleep.

  
“I want you to have it,” they decided. Eret placed the flower crown on Dream’s head, “It’ll be proof to your friends that you actually did summon… someone. Maybe not Herobrine… but someone. I, uh…” They trailed off. Would Dream think less of them if they revealed that they couldn’t harness their powers correctly? Sometimes Herobrine got impatient with them when they failed, even though Herobrine had been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, while they had only existed for fourteen.

  
“Eret?” a hand waved in front of their face, “Eret, are you okay?”

  
“Yeah, Dream, I’m fine,” they forced a smile on their face. They wouldn’t mention it. Dream had been so kind to them today, giving them the sunglasses and treating them kindly when they were most likely a disappointment because they weren’t Herobrine. He probably assumed that they had some semblance of power and had just chosen not to use it. They would keep up that illusion, they decided.

  
“I really should be going now, though. Make sure not to misspell Herobrine next time you want to summon him,” they chuckled and stood up from the field, brushing grass off of their jeans. Dream accompanied them for the few steps back to the shrine. They climbed back on top of the netherrack block that they had arrived on and stood there awkwardly for a few seconds.

  
“Dream, I, uh… I don’t know how to get back?” their voice was almost a whisper at the end of the sentence. They shouldn’t be admitting weakness, but they needed to get back to the pyramid before Herobrine did.

  
“Oh,” Dream laughed, “I hadn’t thought of that… Herobrine isn’t supposed to be able to be removed?”

  
“No… no no no… I can’t get stuck here… I can’t!” their hands reached up into their hair and began to pull on individual strands.

  
“Hey, Eret, it’s okay, um…” the other boy seemed unsure of what to do, “What if you just think about going back to the pyramid? Herobrine can teleport, so maybe you can teleport to the pyramid since you have a strong connection with it? I mean, as long as the shrine is here, it might work…”

  
Eret looked up, tears forming in their glowing white eyes behind the sunglasses.  
“You… you think it might work?” they softly asked.

  
“Yeah, I think it might. I mean, it never said anything about Herobrine not being able to remove himself from a world. It only said stuff about players not being able to. And since you’re similar to him, I think it’s worth a shot,” Dream smiled at them.

  
Eret calmed their pounding heart and racing thoughts. They closed their eyes and thought of the pyramid. The dark, echoing hallways. The windowless walls. The sandstone floors that their boots clicked on and the many libraries piled high with books. The dust on the ground in some hallways that neither they nor Herobrine used often.

  
“Eret?” their own name in Dream’s voice echoed through their ears and they had a strange sense of vertigo. When they opened their eyes, everything was dark. It was not bright and colorful like the place where Dream lived. The glasses covering their eyes made the darkness feel almost claustrophobic. They lifted the sunglasses from their eyes and blinked as a soft white glow lit the hallway in front of them. They were in the pyramid. They had teleported for the very first time, just like Dream had told them they would be able to.

  
They were back in the pyramid. Eret went back to wandering the dark halls again, waiting for Herobrine to return. The memory of the bright, colorful place with Dream and all of the flowers and clouds stayed in their mind. They replayed it over and over. It was a happy memory.

  
\-----

  
Being summoned was an odd sensation. At age 19, Eret had only ever experienced it once, when they were 14 and a boy named Dream accidentally summoned them to his wonderful world full of color. At first, the color had been overwhelming, but then Dream provided them with a pair of sunglasses, which muted the color enough that Eret could appreciate it. Eret kept the glasses hooked onto the top of their shirt. Occasionally, they would try the glasses on to make sure that they still fit.

  
They still lived in the pyramid with Herobrine, and he still was absent quite a lot. If they were lonely, they didn’t show it. After all, there was nobody to show the loneliness to. When Herobrine was at the Eret continued to wander the halls when Herobrine was absent. He was still absent quite a lot. If Eret was lonely, they didn’t show it. After all, there was nobody to show the loneliness to.

  
When Herobrine was at the pyramid, he continued to teach Eret things about the world. He taught them math and science, history and literature, how to build things, and how to break things. Herobrine continued to try and teach them how to use their powers. Even in five years, they had made little progress. The only time they had ever used their magic was 5 years ago, when they had drawn on the magic of the summoning shrine to take them back to the pyramid.

  
Eret’s real skill was in building things. They started to decorate the rooms with supplies Herobrine would bring back from his various exploits causing terror in the worlds of the humans. Some of the rooms of the pyramid were more well-lit, although that wasn’t saying much. A few of the walls had been painted in brighter colors. As they painted, Eret found themself almost unknowingly trying to imitate the bright colors and beautiful flowers of the plains where Dream had summoned them.

  
One morning, when the golden clock on the wall of their room read 8:14 am, Eret was sitting and reading a book about stars and star charts and how sailors would use the stars to navigate. They had never seen the stars. The pyramid still had no windows (it was one of the design choices that Herobrine insisted on). Were the stars the same in every realm and every server?

  
Being summoned was an odd sensation because you were ripped from where you were standing and whirled off to an unfamiliar place. It was 8:17 in the dark pyramid when the text on the book in front of Eret went blurry and white streaks tore across their vision. Faintly, they reached for the glasses hanging on their shirt to make sure they were still there. The pyramid vanished as their stomach did somersaults and, suddenly, they were curled up on top of a netherrack block amidst a forest of pine trees. With shaking hands, they pressed the sunglasses onto their face to block the cacophony of colors.

  
“Well look at that. I spelled your name correctly this time,” a teasing voice said. They sat up and their eyes met a circular white mask with a smiley face drawn on it.

  
“Don’t tell me you don’t remember me, Eret?” the person pouted.

  
“Dream?” they asked, voice low with wonder.

  
“The one and only!” Dream laughed and offered them a hand to stand up. He had a green hoodie on over a black turtleneck shirt, and his hands were protected by fingerless gloves. However, his voice was slightly different. For a moment, they could have sworn it sounded slightly more sinister, but they chalked it up to his voice being muffled by the mask.

  
“Why… why did you summon me again?” they stood up. It was warmer than when they had been summoned previously. Was it summer?

  
“Well, I remember all those years ago, you really liked hanging out here. And guess what, Eret? I made my own server! Welcome to the Dream SMP!” Dream swelled with pride as he spoke.

  
“You named it after yourself?” Eret laughed.

  
“Yeah, I did,” Dream admitted, “But anyway, I summoned you here because I want you to come and live here with everyone. I’m sure you’ll love it so much!”

  
“I appreciate the offer Dream, I really do,” they paused, thinking, “but I’m not entirely sure if I can accept. I’ve been doing my studies at the pyramid and focusing on training my powers and I sort of need the resources in the pyramid library to do that and-“

  
Dream cut them off, grabbing their hand, “No, Eret, this is what’s best for you, I’m sure of it. Please, trust me, you’re going to love it here. We’re going to be one big, happy family!”

  
Being around people sounded nice. They did get awfully lonely in the pyramid… and they didn’t have to stay forever, did they? They could just stay for a little while, and Dream was selling the idea very nicely. But something still crept into the back of their mind that they really shouldn’t, that they didn’t deserve to be here with all the normal people, and something that whispered to them that Dream was being awfully forceful trying to convince them to stay.

  
“Why do you want me to stay?” instead of immediately trying to make sense of their muddled thoughts, they asked Dream a question.

  
“Well, I’m doing you a huge favor, aren’t I? I’m getting you out of your dark pyramid and into the wonderful world of Dream SMP! And maybe, out of the kindness of your heart, you’ll do a few things for me in return,” Dream seemed to loom over them for a moment, but Eret blinked, and he was just standing normally in front of them. Still, they couldn’t quite clear the raincloud over their head that said that something was amiss.

  
“Yes… I suppose that you would be doing me a favor if I chose to stay here…” Eret quietly mused.

  
“Oh, no, Eret. It’s not a choice. I need you to stay here. I know that you’ll like it here, and I know that I’ll probably need some help from someone of your… talents… at some point, so really, it’s a win-win for both of us,” Dream kept his hand on their shoulder as he preached in a sickly sweet tone.

  
Then, without warning, Dream brought his shining netherite pickaxe down on the gold and netherrack of the shrine. The gold blocks shattered into pieces along with Eret’s hope of returning home.

  
“Dream, wait-“ Eret cried out, moving to stop him. It was too late. The shrine was destroyed, all that remained was a pile of gold dust and mossy cobblestone on the ground. Eret tried to reach back out to the pyramid as they had all those years ago, but there was no connection. Without the shrine to link them to their home, they didn’t have enough control of their powers to get back.

  
“Dream, I- I can’t leave! I-“ their breathing quickened as their chest tightened.

  
“Oh, I know Eret. But believe me, you’ll like it here. I mean, your eyes might scare a few people, but they’re easy to keep hidden, aren’t they?” Dream tapped the sides of the sunglasses that he had given to Eret all those years ago.

  
This wasn’t the same Dream who had looked at them with kindness and curiosity. This wasn’t the same Dream who had rushed off so quickly to give Eret glasses when they looked uncomfortable. This Dream was different.

  
With their vision blurry from tears forming in their eyes, Eret ran. They may have been forced to stay in the Dream SMP, but they would not be forced to stay around Dream.


End file.
